Obama Appointee And Bundler Blocks More Video Releases By Group Behind Planned Parenthood Sting July 31, 2015 By Mollie Hemingway A federal judge late Friday granted a temporary restraining order against the release of recordings made at an annual meeting of abortion providers. The injunction is against the Center for Medical Progress, the group that has unveiled Planned Parenthood’s participation in the sale of organs harvested from aborted children. Judge William H. Orrick, III, granted the injunction just hours after the order was requested by the National Abortion Federation. Orrick was nominated to his position by hardline abortion supporter President...

Southland group's goal: Sanders as president By Phil Kadner About 50 people gathered Wednesday in a banquet room at a Flossmoor restaurant to launch a ""political revolution." It's a grass roots movement for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate who embraces single-payer national health insurance, tuition-free public universities for all, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour and taking control of the federal government away from billionaires and corporations and returning it to the people. Mention to these folks that the Vermont senator has been called a socialist, and instead of protests, you're likely to bring a...

Although many commentators – and the Republican Party’s leadership – believe that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s nominee, I’m not so sure. The ultimate proof? Look no further: "Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his associates have begun to actively explore a possible presidential campaign, which would upend the Democratic field and deliver a direct threat to Hillary Rodham Clinton, several people who have spoken to Mr. Biden or his closest advisers say." Biden and his buddies have started talking to Democratic leaders and donors because the latter are worried by Clinton’s “increasingly visible vulnerabilities as a...

Emails released Friday show former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and other State Department officials discussing how to go about helping a powerful Democratic senator who was asking for a job for his daughter in the agency in summer 2009. The pressure paid off for the now-retired Iowa senator, Tom Harkin, as his daughter Jennifer was hired on as the assistant to the ambassador-at-large at the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice. The gig was in a small office that had a “limited number of slots,” another Clinton aide wrote in a separate email chain published Friday. “Remind me...

<p>During a normal check at Lamezia Terme, the rapper was found with $422,820 in U.S. cash, a police source told CNN. The maximum amount of cash that passengers traveling through Italy can carry without declaring it is €10,000 ($11,010.25). The rules were put in place to prevent money laundering.</p>

Cook County Cook County Board Toni Preckwinkle Government and Politics Infrastructure More + Preckwinkle-seeks-pay-hikes-following-Cook-County-sales-tax-increase.com Photo by Manuel Martinez Just two weeks after raising the sales tax to pay for pensions, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is moving to give tens of millions of dollars a year in pay hikes to county workers. Legislation introduced yesterday by the county chief would extend raises of up to 6.5 percent throughout county government. Only those who make more than $200,000 in annual salary would be excluded. The proposal, sent to a Cook County Board committee for review, extends to other unionized employees...

Donald Trump charged Wednesday that a sexually 'deviant' former congressman who is married to Hillary Clinton's closest aide has likely seen the contents of classified emails that passed through the former secretary of state's private home-brew server. Huma Abedin, the Pakistani-American chief of staff to Clinton, was wed in 2010 to then-Congressman Anthony Weiner, the Democrat whose star fell to earth amid lewd sexting scandals. Republicans in Washington are furious with Clinton for destroying tens of thousands of emails dating from her time in office, and for including classified information in an unknown number of others. Trump told DailyMail.com during...

BIRCH RUN, MI — The Michigan Democratic Party is organizing a protest outside the Saginaw County venue where GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump will speak on Tuesday, Aug. 11. The Facebook page for the protest, "Rally Against Donald Trump," was created on July 30 by the Michigan Democratic Party. "We cannot let Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-veteran beliefs be welcome anywhere in our state," the event page states. A poster for the protest references the current GOP frontrunner's "anti-immigrant, anti-veteran statements." Trump will be the keynote speaker at a Lincoln Day event, a fundraiser for the Republican Party in Saginaw and Genesee...

Days after Donald Trump talked up the idea of putting Sarah Palin in his administration, the former Republican vice presidential candidate and tea party favorite is showing she's got Trump's back. Palin wrote Friday on the conservative Breitbart news site that Trump's candidacy will continue to appeal to "ordinary Americans" despite what she described as a bludgeon of attacks from GOP elites, pundits and the media. Calling Trump's candidacy "a shot in the arm for ordinary Americans fed up with the predictable poll-tested blather of squishy milquetoast career politicians," Palin argued that Trump's style and message is appealing to voters...

Video Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was at a loss for words Thursday night after MSNBC’s Chris Matthews pressed her on the differences between Democrats and socialists. “What is the difference between a Democrat and a socialist?” Mr. Matthews asked the Florida congresswoman. “I used to think there is a big difference. What do you think it is?” he asked again after Ms. Wasserman Schultz laughed. “The more important question is what is the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican,” she responded.

MSNBC host Chris Matthews did not receive an answer from DNC Chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), when he asked what the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist is. […] Wasserman Schultz chuckled in response. “I used to think there is a big difference—but what do you think it is?” Matthews continued. “Between a Democrat like Hillary Clinton and a Socialist like Bernie Sanders.” Wasserman Schultz replied, “The more important question is—what’s the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican?” …

Hillary Clinton is as unpopular as she ever has been. Her favorability ratings have fallen to just 40 percent. Her campaign is already heading south, even though she has serious advantages over everyone else in the campaign, both Democratic and Republican. [Snip] Hillary Clinton has never won a competitive election. This can't be repeated enough. She beat Republican Rep. Rick Lazio for her Senate seat in 2000. And she defeated a mayor from Yonkers in 2006. In her first competitive race, the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, she began as a heavy favorite and she lost. What has she done to...

It had all the markings of a Washington house party: guests milling about, talk of politics and policy, a few custom cocktails and a crowd that would make a fire-code enforcer sweat. Oh, and Senator Bernie Sanders. Indeed, on what the campaign is calling one of the most important days of its upstart movement, Mr. Sanders came to this small apartment in southwest Washington, looked into a camera and spoke live to what his campaign said was more than 100,000 supporters nationwide. “Enough is enough,” Mr. Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate from Vermont, told his followers, listing grievance after grievance,...

President Obama opposes Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in the wake of damaging videos exposing its fetal tissue donation program. White House press secretary Josh Earnest stopped short of issuing a formal veto threat against the legislation, but he said “on balance, the president would not be supportive of such congressional action.” "This is a tactic we have seen used before," Earnest said of the GOP legislation. "The president obviously does not support that ongoing effort.” The spokesman accused Republicans of trying "to play some politics with some selectively edited videos" and said they were released in a "fraudulent...

Professing to be “fed up” with the state legislature’s failure to enact a minimum wage he deems high enough, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has decreed a $15 per hour minimum wage for the fast food industry in his state. “I gave the legislature the opportunity to do the right thing, but their refusal to pass the $15 per hour wage has forced me to seize the initiative,” Cuomo said. “The voters of this state elected me to get things done. One way or another, that’s what I’m going to do. If the legislature thinks I’m treading on their turf they...

With 20 percent of Republican voters, Donald Trump is the clear leader in the crowded Republican presidential primary field, but he trails any of three leading Democratic contenders by wide margins in general election matchups, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today. Trump's 20 percent is the largest tally for a Republican contender in any national poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. Behind Trump are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker with 13 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with 10 percent. No other Republican tops 6 percent and 12 percent are undecided. Trump also tops the "no...

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Author Ronald Kessler defends secret service agents and makes some sensational claims about former Presidents in his new book, The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents. Kessler told Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that the recent struggles of the agency detailed in the media is more the fault of management culture than individual agents. “The culture that has led to this corner-cutting, it’s a culture within the management, not among the agents. Agents…are patriots. They sign up to take a bullet for the President. The management has the...

"I haven't seen the videos. And I don't generally make a habit of responding to right-wing videos," O'Malley told reporters in New Hampshire this week. "I do know that 97 percent of the work that Planned Parenthood does is about mammograms and preventative health. So that's what I know but I'll defer to others for commenting on that video and whatever videos they're pumping out there."

Gov. Jay Inslee has sharply rebuffed a campaign demanding that the state investigate and defund Planned Parenthood, describing it as the work of “national extremist organizations” trying to eliminate a vital source of health care for women, particularly poor women. The Governor’s statement came after a letter to Inslee by seven Republican legislators demanded that the state stop funding Planned Parenthood, and a letter from 34 GOP lawmakers asking Attorney General Bob Ferguson to investigate whether Planned Parenthood has been selling organs from aborted babies for financial gain. “Planned Parenthood provides millions of women across the country access to a...

Defying sharp warnings from gun rights groups, Los Angeles thrust itself into the national debate over gun control Tuesday, as city lawmakers voted unanimously to ban the possession of firearm magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.. Such magazines have been “the common thread” in almost all the mass shootings that have devastated the country, from Newtown to Virginia Tech to Columbine, said Juliet Leftwich, legal director for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Backers of the plan said it was a small but meaningful step to minimize the bloodshed, by forcing attackers to at least interrupt their rampages...

A reported two-month gap in emails from Hillary Clinton's private account during 2012 coincides with a period of escalating violence in Libya and the obtaining of a special exemption by her top aide, Huma Abedin, to work for both the State Department and the Clinton Foundation. The Daily Beast reported late Tuesday that no emails between Clinton and her State Department staff for the months of May and June 2012 are among the estimated 2,000 messages that have been released from the Democratic presidential frontrunner's account. A State Department spokesman told The Daily Beast that only emails related to the...

Joe Biden has dreamt of this moment. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in free-fall and Republicans are busily re-enacting Lord of the Flies. After a lifetime of striving and six years as Loyal Number Two, the door has inched open for Biden to run. Joe Biden is popular, has ample name recognition and most likely the backing of the Obama White House. Moreover, he is liberal to his core, but does not alarm big money Democrats the way Elizabeth Warren might. Biden has a shot and could be extremely dangerous to the GOP. Hillary Clinton’s polls are crashing. The once inevitable...

Ted Rall, a noxious left-wing political cartoonist who has advocated violence against conservatives and on more than one occasion revealed himself as a racist, finally went too far, even for the same LA Times that champions those who threaten Jews with curb-stomping. According to the Times, in a May 11 article, Rall outright lied about a 2001 experience he had with the LAPD. Ted Rall — a freelance cartoonist whose work appears regularly in The Times — described an incident in which he was stopped for jaywalking on Melrose Avenue in 2001. Rall said he was thrown up against a...

Booker T. Washington In 1857, the Supreme Court, with seven of the nine justices being Democrat, decided that Dred Scott was not a citizen, but property. Chief Justice Roger Taney, appointed by Democrat President Andrew Jackson, wrote that slaves were “so far inferior … that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for their own benefit.” After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment was adopted Dec. 6, 1865, abolishing slavery in America. Once Southern Democrats were forced to free their slaves, they attempted to effectively re-enslave them by passing “Black Codes” and “Jim Crow Laws” which...

President Obama on Monday denounced the frequently combative tone of the crowded race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, saying "the American people deserve better" and calling out Donald Trump specifically. Hours later, Trump fired back. "He's probably the worst president in the history of our country," the billionaire businessman said during an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. *snip* "In 18 months, I'm turning over the keys," Obama continued. "I want to make sure I'm turning over the keys to somebody who's serious about the serious problems the country faces and the world faces. And that requires on...

The conference could barely fill the first two rows of seats. The speakers emphasized the important role Millennial voters can play in the political process by getting out the vote, engaging fellow students on campus, and supporting the objectives of the Democratic Party. The conference began July 22 and will end this Saturday. Emphasizing the importance of Millennial voters in upcoming elections, progressive activists spoke to a nearly empty auditorium at the College Democrats of America annual conference on Friday. Despite offering a full day of activities, speakers like Julian Castro, and campaigning advice from top political operatives, the College...

During the 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan cultivated a following of disaffected Democrats, known as “Reagan Democrats.” The cross-over vote almost certainly helped Reagan crush Jimmy Carter at the polls. Now, Jeb Bush is developing his own cadre of “Bush Democrats” but this crop sports more than just blue politics—their attraction to Bush is because of blue blood. Jeb Bush smells like money. The scent emanates from him like a perfume, and it attracts the rich, establishment types from both parties in the same way Reagan attracted blue-collar workers to his cause. This is all the more ironic and remarkable since...

Former Maryland governor and current contender for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination Martin O'Malley vowed to extend the rights of US citizenship to every alien in the country on day one of his administration. “According to our Constitution, all men are created equal,” O'Malley maintained. “It is a crime against humanity for us to treat people unequally based on their place of birth. Humans have the right to live wherever they want. Our government has the obligation to ensure that every human who chooses to live in America receives everything to which he or she is entitled.” As O'Malley sees...

The brouhahas over billionaire Donald Trump show how broadcasters favor easy, juicy stories about powerful people’s bad words over harder, less sexy ones about their bad deeds. This is a teachable moment for the mass media. Failing to take Trump seriously could set a dangerous precedent for future candidates with fresh ideas, looking to shake up the controlling status quo. The Huffington Post, which carries my column, announced that it is excluding Trump from its political coverage and instead filing all stories about the man leading the Republican field, according to the most recent polls, under entertainment. If they existed...

Bill Clinton sexual-harassment accuser Kathleen Willey has launched an anti-Hillary Clinton website titled “A Scandal A Day.” The site is partially aimed at recruiting other women who may have been assaulted by the former president. Calling Hillary Clinton “without a doubt the most corrupt politician that this nation has ever seen,” Willey announced the launch of her new website Sunday on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” broadcast on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia’s NewsTalk 990 AM and online. Willey, the former volunteer aide to Bill Clinton who says she was sexually harassed by the president in the 1990s,...

Mayor de Blasio is a big fan of presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders — because the Vermont senator is a proud “Democratic socialist.” [Snip] De Blasio was quick to correct CNN’s Carol Costello after she called Sanders a “socialist,” telling her the senator is a “Democratic socialist.” “I think there’s a lot to like in that title,” he gushed.

The conference began July 22 and will end this Saturday. Emphasizing the importance of Millennial voters in upcoming elections, progressive activists spoke to a nearly empty auditorium at the College Democrats of America annual conference on Friday. Despite offering a full day of activities, speakers like Julian Castro, and campaigning advice from top political operatives, the College Democrats of America were barely able to fill the first couple rows with young attendees.

The super-PAC organized to encourage Vice President Biden to run for president released its first ad on Friday ahead of a “national day of action” to gather signatures for the push. “Some people ask why Joe Biden,” a young man in the ad says. “I turn back and ask them why not Joe Biden? He’s been on of the most influential vice presidents that this country has seen. He’s right now a part of one of the most successful administrations in recent history, and he’s a big reason for that success.” Supporters in the ad praise Biden for being on...

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley on Friday blasted Texas for denying birth certificates to some U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants without valid identification documents, declaring that “citizenship is a human right.” “Denying birth certificates to U.S, citizens is not only outrageous, it’s unconstitutional,” the former Maryland governor said in a statement released in English and Spanish. “The 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution could not be clearer. It states that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,’ ” he...

New York State Senator John Sampson, a Democrat of Brooklyn, was convicted yesterday on three counts, including obstruction of justice. He was acquitted on six others, but the conviction should result in significant prison time. No date has yet been set for sentencing. Between 1998 and 2008, Sampson allegedly embezzled approximately $440,000 from the foreclosure sales of four Brooklyn properties on which he was a court- appointed referee. The embezzlement charges were thrown out because the state of limitations expired. The charges on which he was convicted relate to the cover-up. Reportedly, the Sampson investigation was an extension of...

A quick recap: Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, violated guidelines from the National Archives and her own State Department by using her own private email server for professional correspondence, and then destroying whatever messages she deemed destructible. At first Clinton claimed that she needed a single non-governmental email account for "convenience," because she only had one phone. That claim turned out to be provably false. Next, she claimed that it didn’t matter much, because "The vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the...

Video evidence that Planned Parenthood traffics in organs taken from the babies it kills has sparked a wave of revulsion across the country. This gory profiteering clashes with the organization's attempts to portray itself as a champion of women's health. While Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and ten other Republican senators have requested that the DOJ investigate Planned Parenthood's body snatching business, leading Democrats want an investigation of the organization that released the videos to the media. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) called the videos "a reprehensible invasion of privacy" and demanded that the Center for Medical Progress (the organization...

The Supreme Court's recent decision to make gay marriage legal nationwide was a significant victory for liberals. In next year's election, however, the decision will hurt Democrats. Success, after all, presents it own set of challenges. As sociologists Mayer Zald and Roberta Ash pointed out in their classic 1966 study of social movement organizations, the two biggest challenges of a social movement are complete success and complete failure (Social Forces 44 (March)). The ideal situation for maintaining a social movement, they wrote, would be to "over time always [seem] to be getting closer to its goal without quite attaining it."...

Governor’s races in South and Midwest could be lost if party brand becomes too liberal. Centrist Democrats were wiped out in the 2014 elections and in their absence emerged a resurgent liberal movement, embodied most recently by the surprisingly competitive presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But the suddenly ascendant left — its populist overtones becoming part of the mainstream Democratic pitch — is worrying Democrats who want to compete on Republican-leaning turf. The party lost every competitive gubernatorial and Senate race in the South last year. And Democrats didn’t fare much better in the heartland. Now, as Bernie...

Pop stars are definitely not shy about taking sides in American politics, as we saw when artists such as Madonna, Cher, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Beyonce all rallied behind President Obama in his respective campaigns. On their own, singers are just voters. They might not know a whole lot about politics, and you might not care what they think. But a lot of people, especially young people, do. And young people matter. The 2014 midterms saw the lowest youth turnout in 70 years, contributing to sweeping Republican victories a few short years after the youth vote helped President Obama...

Via the Weekly Standard, where were you the day Hillary’s campaign imploded? No, I kid. Drudge was pushing this earlier because the idea of lefty infighting over whether their nominee-in-waiting is a racist or not is simply delicious. Spoiler: She is racist, or at least the left used to think so. (A few of them still do.) Now that their hold on power depends upon her being absolved, though, absolution is freely granted via the memory hole. She’ll be given a pass on this partly for that reason and partly because her admission about fear of black men in hoodies...

Welcome back, everyone. This column went on hiatus last week, so we could attend Netroots Nation. So we've got two whole weeks to cover today, just to warn everyone in advance. Two weeks ago, we kind of went out on a limb (the polling evidence was not all that clear when we wrote it) and subtitled our previous column: "Donald Trump, Frontrunner." Since that time, such a statement has gone from being a wild prediction to becoming an equally-wild reality. The first Republican presidential debate is happening in less than two weeks, and Donald Trump is not only guaranteed one...

Friday at New York University, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton addressed news reports today that two inspector generals requested the Department of Justice launch a criminal investigation into Clinton’s use of private email and server during her tenure as Secretary of State.

Last month Matt Vespa covered the story of Democrats in Virginia who were talking about changing the name of their annual Jefferson Jackson dinner because of the Dylan Roof shooting or the Confederate Battle Flag or racism or something. That may have sounded rather silly at the time, but itâ€™s turned out to be prophetic. Democrats in Connecticut also have an annual dinner named after the same prominent early Americans â€“ as with their fellows across the nation â€“ and have made the decision to change the name. (Because who would want to be associated with those guys, right?)...

America's two major political parties have a difficult task: amassing a 51 percent coalition in a nation that has always been -- not just now, but from the beginning -- regionally, religiously, racially and ethnically diverse. George W. Bush's Republicans in 2006 and 2008 were not able to hold together the 51 percent coalition that re-elected him in 2004. Barack Obama's Democrats in 2014 were not able to hold together the 51 percent coalition that re-elected him in 2012. And, while the media and the voters are transfixed by the antics of Donald Trump, and speculating on possible damage to...

Group takes a shovel to Confederate General’s grave Posted 10:18 pm, July 22, 2015, by Eryn Taylor MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A group was fed up with waiting, so they got a shovel and dug up a patch of grass next to Nathan Bedford Forrest’s grave and statue in a public park in the Medical District. The group says they wanted the statue and remains removed for a long time, because he was a Confederate soldier, a KKK leader and a slave trader. “If he’s gone, some of this racism and race-hate might be gone,” said Isaac Richmond with Commission on...

January 6, 2014 Group Run by al Qaeda Terrorist Invited to Brief Dems on Drone Policy Alana Goodman The representative of a human rights group headed by a designated al Qaeda terrorist was denied a visa by the State Department after being invited by congressional Democrats to discuss drone strikes.Mohammad Al Ahmady, the Yemen director for Geneva-based NGO Al Karama, was expected to brief Reps. Alan Grayson (D., Fla.), Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), and Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) the morning of the Nov. 19, according to press release from Grayson’s office.Ahmady, who also serves as a top official in an...